


The Shadow's Bride

by PoetHrotsvitha



Series: The Sacrifice [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Edging, F/M, PWP, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 17:00:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21182876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoetHrotsvitha/pseuds/PoetHrotsvitha
Summary: In the dark of the forest, Rey learns to be patient for her monster.





	The Shadow's Bride

**Author's Note:**

> This work is for the prompt 'edging' for kinktober- it also basically became the softest monster-fucking kink fic that you have EVER seen. 
> 
> It is also technically a sequel to Jachenau's Curse (now linked to this work as a series), but can be read on its own. 
> 
> Thank you to JenfysNest for the speedy and helpful beta-read!

Birds twitter overhead, softly singing in anticipation of spring. The light that filters through the dense canopy is soft and buttery, little piercing strands that reach the ground from the late-afternoon sun. 

Rey only has two arrows left. The others are mostly lodged in trees or in the ground, failed attempts to catch the pheasants skittering through the underbrush. 

For these practice sessions, Ben insists on taking her away from his sacred wood. It means that villagers still sometimes look for game, ensuring that the animals are faster and more alert. Crouching beside her, he currently has two fingers on her wrist to keep her from swiftly drawing her bow up and loosing another. “You need to wait for the right moment,” he murmurs. “Stop being so impatient.” 

“I’m plenty good at waiting.” Her knees are starting to get sore; Rey shifts in the dirt, adjusting her weight. It’s easier to do in makeshift trousers than in her old skirts, even if she’s still getting used to how exposed she feels in them. Ben has adjusted to them easily enough, in that she’s caught him staring at her behind multiple times. 

“No, you’re good at _ enduring _. You know how to press everything down and look to a future where you hope things will change. This is different. This is about knowing exactly when to act.” The distinction makes her heart sink and her face heat; she wants to snap at him, but he moves his hand to press it to her lips, still staring intently out to the forest. “See?” A bush is starting to rustle, little telltale movements to indicate an animal. 

With something new to focus on, her irritation evaporates. “I see it.” Rey waits for the head of the pheasant to poke out; notching her bow, she draws and releases in a fluid movement, tilting her elbow to avoid getting snapped by the knockback of the string. 

The arrow soars and lands at the feet of the pheasant, who screeches and scurries off in a flutter of wings. 

“I would’ve waited another minute to see if it wandered further,” Ben says, voice only mildly reproaching. 

Only one arrow left now. Rey presses the heels of her palms to her eyes, groaning. “I’m going to just set a trap. That’s simpler.” 

“That’s not really the purpose of this exercise.” 

“I don’t care.” Her arms and fingers ache. Back when she lived in the village, she had always managed by hunting slower game and using her knife. She stands, practically stomping her feet, frustrated and tired. “I can do this my way—” 

He’s up and in front of her in a moment, cupping her face in his hands. “I know you can. I just want you to let me teach you.” 

This mollifies her a little bit. She stares at his nose, feeling sullen and childish, twisting her mouth into a mulish pout. “I’m finished today.” 

“All right. I can get us something to eat.” 

There’s something strange about the transition, when he shifts from something that looks entirely human to something… Less so. From her Ben to _ Kylo Ren _. Rey has learned that it makes her ears pop if she’s standing too close, the warp and weft of the air drawing taut in a way that’s physical and tangible around his body. She closes her eyes and feels it, the spark of something that smells a little bit like charcoal, feels a little bit like frost. 

When she opens her eyes, he’s gone. 

* * *

Stomach full of rich deer stew, happy and sated, Rey rests on their bed in her shift. When she’s idle like this, she can’t help but poke at bits of her body—her breasts, her thighs; all bits of her that had almost no give when she first was taken to the forest as sacrifice. Now she has a nice layer of fat built up, a cushion for hunger and winter. The result of eating well every day, sleeping on a mattress of goose down, and cleaning in the nearby stream. Even her hair feels softer and healthier. 

Under a blanket now, she is content and sleepy with the warmth from the fire filling the small cabin. It’s still an alien feeling. But she’s getting more used to it every day. 

Ben is carving in the corner on a stool, face focused as he whittles. It will eventually add to the small collection of wooden animals that sit on the shelf, delicate deer and boar and birds, his forest recreated in miniature. Stripped down to his braes, the shadows across his arms and chest move as he works. 

“Ben,” she murmurs, holding her arms out. “Come to bed.” 

“One minute.” The intentness of his gaze sets something fluttering in her chest. 

“Not one minute. Now.” 

“So impatient.” 

“Be-een,” she wheedles, moving to sit up, holding her arms out to him. “Come kiss me.” 

That never fails to get his attention. With an exaggerated sigh, he sets his tools aside, brushing sawdust off his hands. Rey doesn’t expect him to literally lunge towards the bed, dropping with such force onto the mattress that she bounces upwards, shrieking and laughing, colliding with his chest. Crushed into a bear hug, she can only wriggle as he peppers kisses to her cheeks and forehead, squirming against the tickling softness of his hair. 

She doesn’t _ want _to move when he starts to work his way down, past her ribs and to her stomach. Rey has learned so much about herself and her body these few months, learned about all the ways that it can come alive. She’s learned about Ben’s body too, the things that make him moan and grit his teeth. She likes those things very much. 

And when he reaches his favourite spot between her legs, he switches from light kisses to licking in broad strokes and sucking in gentle pulls; she wriggles and hums happily into the air. Her shift is bunched up so that he can palm her breast in his hand, kneading gently, and the two sensations pull her back and forth, and catch in her lungs. 

He works her higher and higher, twirling his tongue in a way that makes her shake, until she’s bucking against his face, legs bent up as high as they can go. 

But then—right at the crucial moment, he stops. Lifts his head and blows a cool stream of air against her heated, slippery skin, trapping a gurgled sob in her throat. 

“What you need to understand,” he says, “is that it’s about waiting for the right moment. About approaching things the right way—with patience.” 

“Please,” she whispers, fingers twitching in his hair, gasping when she feels the blunt tip of one finger stroke through her folds again. It feels impossibly good, just that light touch, soft and barely-there. “Please.” 

“I don’t know if you’re ready.” 

“I am,” she insists, tongue dry, tacky in her mouth. “I am. I _ am _.” 

“You say a lot of things without meaning them, Rey.” 

“I mean this,” she snaps, petulant, and he huffs with laughter. She feels each brush of air, wriggling against it, desperately trying to generate friction. It’s pointless, but that doesn’t stop her. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes,” she says, desperation making her chant it. “Yes, yes, Ben, please, I’m so sure, _ Ben _-” 

He sounds almost thoughtful, infuriatingly calm. “I should do this more often.” 

She’s about to tell him that he wouldn’t dare, but everything disappears from her brain when he has mercy and lowers his lips to her again. It’s not long before she comes with a stuttered, drawn out wail, writhing on the bed, harmonising with his satisfied groan. 

* * *

“There’s been a message from Jachenau.” 

It’s first thing in the morning, when he usually goes to collect water. Rey pauses in the middle of braiding her hair into a tidy crown around her head. “What? How?” 

“Some fool was wandering on the edges of the forest— I thought they might leave on their own, but they lingered and lingered. When I showed myself, he nearly shat his pants and told me that the village wants to see you.” 

She hasn’t seen any of them since they decided she was sufficient as a sacrifice to the old gods. “Why?” 

“Didn’t say. He took off at a run as soon as the words were out.” 

She has to bite the inside of her cheeks to not smile at his vaguely offended tone. “Should I go?” 

Ben won’t meet her eyes. “They tried to hurt you.”

“That was a few idiots, not the entire village.” 

He doesn’t answer her directly. “... If you go, I won’t stop you,” he finally says, everything in his body tense and wound tight. 

“I’ll try to be back before nightfall.” A million questions are buzzing around the back of her mind; hope, seditious, murmurs that she is being summoned back because her parents have returned, because her family still lives and wants her back. 

Putting on her dress feels like donning an old skin. It could be her feathered cape, transforming from woman to swan, straddling worlds. But instead of feeling comforting, it chafes, as if she’s forgotten the old enforced boundaries that shaped her, dictating her limitations. 

* * *

A child in the field sees her coming down the path from the forest. He immediately takes off at a sprint towards the village, and by the time she reaches the cluster of houses, there is a small hushed crowd gathered near the well. 

Old Gotlinde speaks up first, leaning on her stick. “Rey,” she says, her voice a mimicry of gentle maternal kindness. “We worried that you might be dead.” 

The hollowness of it is reflected in the faces of a few in the crowd, obvious guilt conflicting with the message. Rey is clenching her jaw so tightly that it aches. “You sent for me?” 

“We need you to plead for us to Kylo Ren.”

“Why would I do that?” 

“You are his bride, are you not?” 

A dog barks somewhere in the distance and the silence swells. Rey, speechless, gapes at the crowd. It’s not entirely incorrect, of course, but still, the _ intimacy _ of it— 

“You still live,” Gotlinde continues, “which means he has kept you. But he is still not pleased. We sent him Unkar Plutt as he asked, never to be seen again, but still he is angered. Two boys have died, healthy in the morning and stricken by an illness that saw them dead by sunset.” 

Ben has said nothing of these boys. Plutt, yes, he had told her about, refusing to give details but insisting that he was satisfied. But that had been the end of it. 

“Please,” a man says, edging to the front of the crowd, closer until she recognises the face of Oswald the farmer. “My boy is sick as well. I’m begging you. Please ask him to have mercy.” 

It’s strange to be in such a position, to look at the faces of these people who were all too happy to cast her aside, and know that she has the power to make their lives better or worse. 

Part of her longs to tell them all to go to hell. 

But then Oswald shuffles forward in the dirt, until Rey can see that his eyes are filled with tears. “Please, my wife is gone, he’s my only family, all I have left—” 

And Rey’s resistance wilts. “I will ask him,” she says, holding out a hand. “Please, stand, you’ll dirty your clothes—” 

But Oswald flinches from her, twisting his hat in his hands, as if she is contaminated.

Gotlinde speaks up again. “Could it be, Rey,” she says with narrowed eyes, “that we need to send another girl? Perhaps you have not pleased him as well as another might; perhaps you could stay here, return to us, and we will send another so that he might end the curse?” 

And just like that, Rey’s good will shrivels and dies. “I’ll ask him, but I can’t guarantee how he will answer. And,” she raises a threatening finger, “if any one of you tries to prevent me from leaving, I can say with _ certainty _ that you will feel his rage.” There is something pettily satisfying about how the crowd recoils with fear, even as she turns to stomp away. 

But the satisfaction doesn’t last long. She isn’t more than halfway to the forest, following the winding path in plodding steps, before the interaction is hanging heavy in her heart. 

* * *

It is nearly dark by the time she finds the cottage, following the brook through the trees. The fire is blazing when she steps inside, warm and inviting. 

Ben is standing in front of it, arms tightly crossed. “I thought you maybe weren’t coming back,” he says, and he tries to be casual about it, but the relief leaks through the edges. It makes her heart squeeze in her chest. 

She stomps the feeling down. “Are you still killing people in Jachenau?” 

The question doesn’t faze him. “No. I’ve lost interest in them.” 

The idea that this is what keeps them safe—his lack of _ interest— _makes the baby hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. “Two boys have died in the last week, unexpectedly.” 

“People get sick,” he says, shrugging. “They die. It happens.” 

Perhaps it’s another sign of her shedding skin, her loss of humanity, but Rey can’t find it in herself to truly mourn for the very people who belittled her and drove her to the edge of starvation every winter. “They wanted to know if they should send another girl.” 

His eyes narrow. “What?” 

“Should I go back and tell them,” she says, forcing the words out one by one, “that one girl was a suitable sacrifice?” Speaking out loud about her situation makes it feel all the more unreal, as if she’s standing beside her own body. As if it is someone else in the room. 

“Those old ideas about sacrifice, all those stories—that isn’t why I want to have you here,” he says, crossing the cabin, close enough that she can see each of his individual lashes as he hunches towards her, trying to look her directly in the eye without towering over her. “You must know that. It’s never been about that.” 

“I don’t know anything,” Rey says, looking away. “So many years, that village was my home—and it turns out they don’t know me at all.”

“But I do,” he promises, low and insistent. “I’ve seen your anger, and the way you endure. It doesn’t need to be that way anymore. Rey,” he says, almost a whisper. “They’re fools.” 

When he kisses her, it’s as if he’s trying to communicate something with it, soft but insistent. It builds as she kisses him back, reaching for the familiarity of her arousal, the way it stops her from thinking about anything else. From worrying or wondering. 

The dress feels so much better coming off than it did going on. It feels like freedom to kick it into the corner, where she can ignore it. Especially once she’s bare and pressed back into the bed, with Ben hovering over her, his hands stroking over her skin. 

He presses kisses to the valley between her breasts, fingers tracing patterns up from her knee, inside her thigh. The toughened skin of his thumb feels too rough when he presses it between her legs, sending a sizzling spark up her spine. 

Everything in her coils up tightly when he strokes in circles, insistent, giving her no room to shy away. The gathering heat of pleasure sits between her hips, pulsing with life, making her arch and reach to kiss him everywhere that she can reach. The bridge of his nose, the arch of his cheekbone. It’s reassuring and grounding to feel him there, over her. 

But as the heat reaches a pleasing pitch, he moves his hand away. Annoyed, she scrunches her face and glare down at him, trying to sit up, only to have him hold her in place. 

“I can see you,” he says, speaking the words against her temple. “It’s always you, and I need you to know that.” 

“I do—” 

“Do you? Because I need you to really listen, Rey, and I need you to wait. Can you wait?” 

With a frustrated huff, she tries to unwind, relaxing her tense muscles one by one until she is loose on the mattress again. The promise of pleasure is still throbbing between her legs, her thighs sticky with want, but she can breathe. 

Until he starts to touch her again. 

Those same, infuriating slow circles, just like she likes, slowly growing in pressure and intensity. The room feels unnaturally hot, hotter than just the fire should make it, her body burning up on the inside. It rises and rises, pulsing through her body with each swipe of his large fingers. 

She’s teetering on a knife’s edge, clenching down on nothing, desperate for something more, anything more, just a _ little _more— 

But he lifts away again. The burn lasts longer this time, the tantalising orgasm just out of reach. 

Rey hisses through her teeth, trying to express her anger, the way that her body feels like it’s thrumming with potential that can’t be released. But Ben kisses her fully, melding their lips together, and it’s distracting enough that she’s focused on that instead—moving with him, tasting him as she strokes his shirt and hair. 

By the time he starts and stops again, bringing her to the brink a third time, she could cry. 

There is no room for anything in her head except for the pulsing beat of _ Ben, Ben, Ben _. She’s never felt so exposed, so helpless, so safe. 

He’s murmuring soothing, shushing things again, and there’s a rustling of clothes as he strips. His warm body covers hers, holding her tightly, she can only cling to his shoulders like he’s a lifeline. 

It makes it hard to breathe when she feels his cock nudge against her, the heat of it burning on her overhot skin. The press of him is heavenly, splitting her open as he pushes into her, filling her up so completely that there is no room for anything else. Her thighs keep twitching as she draws her legs higher, all of her focus drawn to where they’re connected. 

His breath is on her ear as he speaks. “You feel perfect, Rey. Say it.” 

She can’t summon the words. She whimpers something incoherent, just a high warble of sound. 

“Say it.” A gentle rock and everything is alight again, coursing through her, making her hands shake. 

“Perfect,” she breathes, squeezing her eyes shut, feeling a tear streak down her cheek. 

“Yes. That’s right.” Another movement of his hips, a slow draw, out and in, slick and firm. “So beautiful.” 

And it is beautiful, in its own obscene, seductive way, so she nods helplessly against his shoulder, nose pressed to his skin. “... Beautiful.” 

“Good girl,” he praises, and it sends another flush of heat through her body. He changes the angle of his body and it presses something that pushes her right to the edge again, so close that she can taste it. She tries to rock against him but he grips her hip, thumb firm against the bone, holding her steady. “At the right moment, Rey. This is waiting, not enduring. Can you wait?” 

She wants him to praise her again, so she nods like before, freezing in place. She has to draw in breaths through her nose and breathe out in frustrated puffs through her mouth, like she’s trying to extinguish a fire inside her; it doesn’t help, only making her more aware of everywhere they’re touching, the humidity of the air trapped between their bodies. 

“That’s right,” he says, beginning to move a little faster, stroking inside her with growing strength. “I’m yours, do you understand, Rey? I was the moment you came to _ my _forest and pointed your arrows at me. The look in your eyes— that was it for me. I’m only yours.” 

“Yes,” she says, when he pauses, clearly waiting for a response, feeling her crest build higher and higher. She nearly says _ yours _, just parroting, but catches herself at the last moment. “Mine,” she whispers, unclenching her hands enough to reach up and cup his cheek. “My monster.” 

Ben groans at that, speeding up again, gradually shedding his controlled and steady pace. “So tight, Rey, so perfect for me, can you feel it—” 

She wants to come so badly that it’s starting to actually hurt her, building a knot of tension in her stomach. “I can, please, please, Ben, please!” 

When he has mercy on her, reaching down between them, it takes barely two little rubs of his rough thumb before her whole body seizes—pleasure setting her on fire. It’s different from what she’s experienced before, coming from somewhere deep inside her body and rolling in waves, leaving pleasurable aftershocks each time he moves. Far from making her boneless and limp like it normally does, she can only cling to him tighter as each thrust seems to give her more and more of it, leaving her thighs shaking and all the muscles in her stomach jumping. 

They’re both writhing on the bed, sweaty and twisted together, when his thrusts become a little less coordinated, a little bit more desperate, bucking into her with abandon. Each one hits the very limit of her, where it might normally hurt but now just aches with satisfaction and pleasure. 

She’s still twitching, panting and dizzy, when he lets go of her to spend across her stomach. 

* * *

The weather is a little worse this time, the sky an overcast grey. It lends richness to the smell of the forest, heavy in her nose. 

Ben’s voice is soothing in her ear. “Wait… Breathe…” 

There is something scratching in the underbrush nearby, faint but distinct. 

“Wait…” 

The moment is coming. She can feel it, a thrumming anticipation that promises a prize. 

A pheasant hops into view, tail twitching. A few extra beats and it settles, calm in the centre of the clearing. 

Rey draws and releases, and her aim is true. 


End file.
